Sunday, June 15, 2008

If the carrot didn't work, will our allies and partners be willing to try the stick?

Some good news... France is now on our side.

Bush, French president united against IranBy JENNIFER LOVENAssociated PressJun 14,2008

PARIS (AP) - Iran rejected a six-nation offer of incentives to stop enriching uranium on Saturday, prompting President Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to jointly warn Tehran anew against proceeding toward a nuclear bomb.

"Our allies understand that a nuclear-armed Iran is incredibly destabilizing, and they understand that it would be a major blow to world peace," Bush said at a news conference with Sarkozy at Elysee Palace.

The quickly unfolding series of events began in Tehran, where European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana played the role of messenger for the offer from the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China.

Solana presented the plan - a refreshed version of a 2006 package that Iran ignored - to Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and its top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. There were no plans for Solana to see Iran's hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Even before Solana's meetings, however, Iran gave its pre-emptive judgment of the deal that holds out the promise of economic, technological, educational and political rewards: dead on arrival, assuming the offer is conditioned on Iran halting its uranium enrichment, which it is.

"If suspension is included in the package, it won't be considered at all," the official IRNA news agency quoted Iran's government spokesman, Gholam Hossein Elham, as saying Saturday. "The position of the Islamic Republic of Iran is clear. Preconditions can't be raised for any halt or suspension."

Notice use of the word "preconditions?" Coincidence with the controversy of Obama's decision to meet "without preconditions" with Iran's leaders? Not likely.

And in the coming campaign, if some Dem tries to sell the soap that we don't work with our allies and partners around the world, just print this story out and.....